By: Zachary Harmuth
Well, well, well. The Ravenwood Raptors appear to have some easy prey in their Thursday night home game against the Dickson County Cougars.
The Raptors bounced back from their first loss of the season two weeks ago at Overton with a big, tough district win last week over Centennial, 38-35. They are 5-1 and should be feeling confident, coming home after two weeks on the road.
It helps that they know that they are two points away from being undefeated, since the Overton loss came in overtime, and was 34-33. They have played a lot of close games, and seem to respond positively when the pressure is on. Three of their games have been decided by three points or less. They won two, which is pretty good.
That is in large part thanks to their quarterback, Avery Jankowski. He is on a hot streak, throwing 38-59 for 463 yards 7 TDs and 3 interceptions in the teams last two wins. And two of those picks came in the Overton loss, and were more about desperation than making mistakes.
The game Thursday is another district 11 game, and the Raptors are 2-0 in it, in second place behind Franklin. Dickson is 1-2 in the district, and 1-6 overall, with their only win coming last week against 1-6 Summit, whose coach was promptly fired.
So, for Ravenwood, the only thing to be careful of is to not overlook the obviously inferior Cougars. It is a short week, with less time to prepare. And we will see how coach Will Hester does in preparing his team mentally to stay sharp.
The 9th ranked in 6A Raptors have a huge district game next week on the road at undefeated Franklin, ranked 5th in 6A and leading in District 11.
If they can hurdle Dickson safely, they will have a long week to prepare for their biggest game of the season. A win next week against Franklin would give Ravenwood sole possession of first in its district and probably put it back up in the top 5 of Class 6A.
Dickson’s only win came against a team that also has only one win. They, no offense intended, just are not very good this year.
In other words, if the Raptors do not win this week, they really do not deserve to win against Franklin. But as long as they play the way they have all season this week, it is the Cougars, not the Raptors, who will go extinct.
